JAY JOSHI
While the dust was still settling on the past incident where actor Rahul Bose was charged Rs 442 for a pair of Bananas at a five star hotel, in a more recent case, Meera Chopra, cousin of actress Priyanka Chopra found insects in food served at a five star hotel in Ahmedabad. Why did these incidents take place, and how did they affect hospitality industry, is a question that deserves some attention. TG Life spoke to people ranging from customers, branding experts, and people associated with the industry, who stated that the issue is wider than just damage of reputation caused to the two establishments concerned with the above-mentioned incidents.
“In the case of the maggots incident, it all comes down to sincerity and dedication,” stated Kavita Natekar, a businesswoman from Vasco. “Not only here, but in every field, fewer people work sincerely, delivering only superficial jobs. When everyone in the quality control mechanism shrinks their responsibility, only then, such incidents happen, and they damage the reputation of the entire establishment,” Natekar said.
On the other hand, Vrushank Kanekar, a branding and marketing professional from Pune had a different take on the issue. “To be honest, the USP of starred hotels is a luxury, and not hygiene. Luxury and hygiene do not necessarily go hand-in-hand,” quips Kanekar, adding, “It is however unfortunate for such things to happen, and the hotel should really pay attention to its quality control. That said, I do not think it will have a deep impact on its business. As we all know, the memory of the masses is short-lived, and clients will start visiting the hotel again soon,” said the advertising professional.
Gouri Joshi, a food critic from Panaji also opined that the said incident was a matter of serious concern. “Starred hotels must fulfill certain criteria in order to get the five star rating. In this case, there has been a slip-up in supervision and quality control, and these cracks need to be addressed as soon as possible,” says the food critic.
Rajat Bakre, a restauranteur from Ponda however, stated that there could be several possibilities of how this issue could have occured. “Such things do happen in the hospitality industry,” said Bakre. “It is a fact that staff at many big hotels is underpaid, and thus does not exactly care about the company and its reputation. Instead, they might deliberately try to harm the good name of the brand by doing exactly such things,” he stated, adding, “many times, companies tend to buy frozen products and serve them even after the due date, which seems to be the case with this particular incident. Even so, in starred hotels, there is a lot of manpower involved in serving a dish. There is the chef who cooks the dish, there is a different guy who plates the dish, a waiter who serves, and a manager who supervises all these. How this dish escaped from the eyes of so many people, is the key question,” said Bakre, further observing that the speculation does not end only at this point.
“This is a big business with stiff competition, and one could stage such incidents in order to make heavy losses to brands. Such moves could be orchestrated by business rivals or by independent individuals, but this is a part of the game you cannot neglect,” stated the hospitality industry veteran.
But while people expressed concerns over the maggots issue, their stand was comparatively soft on the famous banana incident. “When you set up business or service in a free market economy, what price to set for your goods is entirely your prerogative,” said Vrushank Kanekar, “People visiting starred hotels are generally aware that the services there are over-priced. Secondly, I think the Rahul Bose story was actually about the high GST charge and not exactly the price of bananas,” he adds. It may be noted here that the concerned hotel was later fined Rs 25000 for over-pricing the bananas.
Benedicta Nazreth, a corporate employee from Salegao avers that overpricing on part of starred hotels is wrong. “There are many other simple places that offer better quality food than five star hotels, but do not have the kind of hype and spotlight starred hotels do. I feel starred hotels care more about making profits and lack a touch of humanity,” Nazreth says.
Even so, these incidents serve to underline how important the game of quality and reputation is, pretty much for any industry.
